John Henry Newman: Our Minds are Bewildered

A few days ago, I ran across an interesting excerpt from a sermon by Blessed John Henry Newman (you can find it here; it’s from Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII, p. 26-27).

It struck me as particularly descriptive of how our society has come to be found in its miserable state of moral turpitude – our descent down the slippery slope.

Blessed John Henry Newman says [emphases mine, throughout]:

…[C]uriosity strangely moves us to disobedience, in order that we may have experience of the pleasure of disobedience…We indulge our reason, we indulge our passions, we indulge our ambition, our vanity, our love of power; we throw ourselves into the society of bad, worldly, or careless men; and all the while we think that, after having acquired this miserable knowledge of good and evil, we can return to our duty, and continue where we left off; merely going aside a moment to shake ourselves, as Samson did, and with an ignorance like his, that our true heavenly strength is departed from us.

Ah, yes. I have heard many people talk about how they started smoking cigarettes as an act of rebellion, and how they always thought they could just stop whenever they wanted…until the addiction established itself and control seemed to be wrested from their grip. Other less physically addictive behaviors take the same path, though. Blessed John Henry Newman gives this example:

Everyone is shocked at cursing and swearing when he first hears it; and at first he cannot help even showing that he is shocked…But when he has once got accustomed to such profane talking, and been laughed out of his strictness, and has begun to think it manly, and has been persuaded to join in it, then he soon learns to defend it.

He goes on to tell us how Satan deludes us and lulls into acceptance of sin. Satan, he says,

… knows well that if he can get us once to sin, he can easily make us sin twice and thrice, till at length we are taken captive at his will…Now our great security against sin lies in being shocked at it.

And that is the problem in our society today, is it not? We are not shocked at sin. We’ve been exposed to it so much that we are oblivious to the inappropriateness of much of the sin we see.

For example, I think that many children and teens today don’t have the faintest notion of modesty. Nothing seems to shock them in terms of revealing clothing worn by their peers; they have become used to seeing each other half naked. (Side note: although I’m well aware of the immodesty that is so prevalent, I have learned to avoid it. But yesterday, when I was at a shopping mall with my daughter, I found myself actually feeling embarrassed by those larger-than-life photos of women clad only in their underwear – if you can actually call it that! – prominently displayed on the windows of Victoria’s Secret for all passers-by to see.)

Our souls are not oblivious, though. Our souls are affected by the sin we see, but our intellect denies the damage. The prevalence of sin today – in books, movies, advertisements, and everyday life – has mesmerized our minds and emotions. Newman continues:

We know that some serpents have the power of what is called "fascinating." Their eye has the power of subduing--nay, in a strange way, of alluring--their victim, who is reduced to utter helplessness…What a dreadful figure this is of the power of sin and the devil over our hearts! At first our conscience tells us, in a plain straightforward way, what is right and what is wrong; but when we trifle with this warning, our reason becomes perverted, and comes in aid of our wishes, and deceives us to our ruin.

People used to know that it is wrong to for couples to live together and engage in sex before marriage. Today, though, it’s commonly accepted that “everyone” lives together before marriage, and consciences have been numbed by the prevalence of the sinful behavior. Most adults today are not shocked to hear about a couple cohabiting, and the people engaging in that behavior generally seem to have no compunction about it – they are not embarrassed at all, whereas in days gone by people used to go to some pains to hide the truth. Now it’s just a fact of life.

How is that our consciences become numb and silent? We listen to wrong ideas:

Then we begin to find, that there are arguments available in behalf of bad deeds, and we listen to these till we come to think them true; and then, if perchance better thoughts return, and we make some feeble effort to get at the truth really and sincerely, we find our minds by that time so bewildered that we do not know right from wrong.

There you have it. A perfect description of what’s gone wrong in society today. “What’s so wrong about two people who love each other living together?” people ask. And then it becomes “What’s wrong with two same-sex people who love each other wanting to be ‘married’?” as they contemplate homosexual “marriage”. “Our minds are so bewildered, we don’t know right from wrong.” We’ve forgotten how to properly form our consciences.

In addition, it seems to me that at least one or two generations have never been trained in logic and critical thinking. That’s why Obama can offer an “accommodation” of the HSS contraception mandate like this…

“If a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge.”

…and expect the American public to say, “Oh yeah, that sounds good. Nobody has to pay for it. That’ll work. Cool.”

To be fair, I guess people have always been willing to believe it is possible to get something for nothing. Still, for someone like Sister Carol Keehan to receive Obama’s statement as if it were manna from heaven is ludicrous. Perhaps she should learn to read a statement before offering her approval of it (see Fr. Z).

"Our minds are so bewildered, we don't know right from wrong."

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Rethinking 501(c)3: What profiteth a man...

EWTN, Belmont Abbey College, Christian University, and Priests for Life are all taking Sebelius et al. to court! Yee hah! This is action! This is more than writing a letter. This is more than having strong-sounding words read at Mass.

This is doing something about an egregious campaign against religious freedom and the Catholic Church. But…something seems to be missing…

It’s…our bishops! Why aren’t our bishops were leading this campaign?

Could it be that decades of receiving federal grants has compromised their position? Could it be that they are afraid of biting the hand that feeds them?

The creeping socialism that has become a roaring lion in this country is threatening not just our religious freedom, but the integrity of our religious leaders. We are soft. We've been lulled into complacency. We've stuck to the middle road so as not to ruffle feathers and to ensure that federal grants will continue to be awarded for our good works to be accomplished.

There's a price to pay.

I remember way back in grad school when I was a liberal non-Christian studying child psychology. At that time, much was being said and written about the socialized day care and school programs in the Scandinavian countries. I had a child, too, and state subsidized (read: free) child care sounded pretty good on the face of it. But even I, naive as I was politically, realized that when you invite the government to help you raise your children, the government is going to insist on having something to say about how they are raised, what they are taught, and the number of hours the kids will be in state care. 

There's no free lunch.

I found this 2002 statement on federal funding in the USCCB archives:

The past several decades have seen huge increases in federal awards to state and local governments and non-profit organizations. Many of these federal awards are of a social service nature and have been granted to church-related organizations interested in meeting the needs of the underprivileged in this country (e.g., foster care grants to Catholic Charities). As the amounts awarded to governmental units and non-profit organizations have increased, so have the attempts to ensure that such funds are spent as intended and that such funds are not subject to fraud, waste, and abuse. Additionally, the terms of federal awards are becoming more restrictive with regard to the religious character that may be involved with the use of those funds. Accordingly, care should be exercised to safeguard the free exercise of our Catholic faith…

…

By accepting donations from individuals or organizations that have attached restrictions to the donation, an organization incurs a legal and moral obligation to adhere to the restrictions imposed by the donor. The clear alternative is not to accept the donation. Federal awards are no different in this respect…

I guess the bishops have seen the current situation coming, slowly but surely.

Certainly, our Catholic institutions – health, education, and charity – are of value to society, and it is not altogether unreasonable to expect that some tax moneys might go to the institutions that provide these services. But, again, there is a price to pay for receiving federal funds.

Now we are beginning to see the price go up. And as the price goes up, institutions fall. To wit: Catholic HealthCare West has voluntarily changed its name and dropped its affiliation with the Catholic Church (see more about this here).

I think it’s time for Catholics – bishops, priests, laity – to begin to grow up and take responsibility for funding our own works. It’s time to get out of bed with the government, to stop relying on government funds to do good works, and to put our own Catholic money to work.

I hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth commencing: “We can’t afford it!” “There’s not enough money!” “It’s impossible!” “People won’t give that kind of money in this economic climate!”

Hogwash, I say. And I always have. There’s money. People will give…if they understand about giving, about supporting the Church. And God will provide.

This means re-training the faithful, though. Come to think of it, it means re-training the pastors as well.

Pastors of Pentecostal churches, in my experience, hammer on tithing and on trusting God. In many Protestant churches, tithing – and they mean ten per cent of one’s income – is unstintingly taught. And people do tithe. People are taught to give by faith, to understand that “God loves a cheerful giver” and that “you can’t out-give God”, etc. Sometimes the message rests on thread-bare theology, but at least it’s taught – and taught with enthusiasm and sincerity.

Believe me, there is a huge difference between hearing an earnest sermon about giving freely of one’s resources to the local church because of the needs of God’s people, and hearing a lukewarm, monotone explanation of why we have to fork over some cash for the Bishop’s Appeal (or whatever) by a pastor who’s afraid the mere mention of giving money to the Church will offend some people. Giving “from the heart” to a God Whom we love and Who loves us is just plain different than the sort of institutionalized giving I’ve seen in the Church.

I’ve tried to convince a priest or two that, if they make a change that really should be made (e.g., correct a liturgical abuse), they may lose some “givers”, but they will gain others. They didn’t believe me, and so they didn’t even try.  

But ask yourself: why would God not provide for a parish that is growing in holiness, becoming more reverent in the liturgy, and striving to minister to the poor?

Nowhere in Scripture is it written that “God helps those who help themselves.” On the contrary, Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path.”

I think it’s time to re-group and take stock of the Church’s relationship with the government. It’s time to rethink the tax exempt status that is so near and dear to the hearts of so many of our bishops – so near and dear that it led one bishop to silence a priest who preached the truth and banish him to a distant corner of the diocese.

If the Church’s tax exempt status truly does require a silencing or twisting of the truth, is it worth it?

Are the souls lost to falsehood and sin worth the dollars made available for “social justice” projects?

Bishops and priests, is it worth risking your own souls (by failing to teach and preach the truth to your flock) in order to gain a few extra dollars?

There has to be a better way. Pray for our bishops.

Yes, We ARE Out to Convert People

A man arrives at the gates of heaven. St. Peter asks, "Religion?" The man says, "Methodist." St. Peter looks down his list, and says, "Go to room 24, but be
very quiet as you pass room 8."

Another man arrives at the gates of heaven. "Religion?" "Baptist."

"Go to room 18, but be very quiet as you pass room 8."

A third man arrives at the gates. "Religion?" "Jewish."

"Go to room 11, but be very quiet as you pass room 8."

The man says, "I can understand there being different rooms for different religions, but why must I be quiet when I pass room 8?"

St. Peter tells him, "Well, the Catholics are in room 8, and they think they're the only ones here.”

In writing about my letter to the editor of the local newspaper (“HSS Mandate: Write a Letter to the Editor”), I mentioned that a friend had emailed me about that letter, stating in part, “We will not stop OCare by spreading our doctrine, it is a turn-off to most people, we are not out to make converts…”

I had meant to address that little sentence, but forgot; I was reminded, though, by Anita’s comment, which said in part:

I think your friend…is wrong. In the first place, we ARE out to convert people: that was our mission statement from Jesus Himself, not to be improved upon by any bureaucratic parish committee: go out and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

To be perfectly honest, I wrote the letter to the editor: a) primarily for Catholics who are using or have used contraception and should know better; b) for Catholics who are ignorant on that issue through no fault of their own; and c) for non-Catholics who might feel the stirring of the Holy Spirit when they read the truth in print in their local newspaper. I wrote the letter only secondarily for the purpose of motivating people to take action regarding the HSS mandate.

After all, which is more important: the salvation of souls, or the protection of Constitutional rights?

If, as Catholics, we’re “not out to make converts”, it means we’re not convinced of the Truth of our faith. It means we’ve bought the Protestant notion that each person can seek God in his or her own way, that professing a simple belief in Jesus as the Son of God means you are “saved”, and that “saved” Christians will go straight to Heaven when they die. It doesn’t work that way, and as Catholics, we should know that.

If more of us really believed our salvation depended on our belief in “all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches”, we would first of all practice our faith with greater fidelity; and second, we would want to help others come to an understanding of why it is a very good thing to be Catholic.

I came into the Catholic Church because of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. I was willing to put up with the bad music and the wimpy homilies because I wanted Jesus, and I knew that the Real Presence was not in the grape juice and saltines handed out for the once-a-month communion in the Protestant church I attended.  I had read enough of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to be reasonably sure that there wasn’t anything I was going to object to. Only after being received into the Church did I discover the splendor of Her Truth, the depth of Her traditions, the magnificence of the extraordinary form of the Mass.

Only slowly did I come to realize that what the Bible says is true:

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. (Matthew 7:13-14)

Catholicism is the narrow gate. It’s the fullness of the Truth. 

Anything “Christian” that is outside the Catholic Church is incomplete.

Sadly, I don’t think that the punch-line in the joke above holds true these days. I don’t think too many Catholics believe they are the only ones who can get to Heaven. Now, I’m not saying that Catholics are the only ones in Heaven; I am saying that it’s sad that more of us don’t, deep in our hearts, treasure the knowledge that we, as Catholics, have a lot better chance of getting there than do non-Catholic Christians.

Which we do.

Even the Vatican II document on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, notes that

…our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those to whom he has given new birth into one body, and whom he has quickened to newness of life – that unity which the Holy scriptures and the ancient Tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained… (paragraph 3; my emphases)

Michael Voris touched on this idea in his Vortex episode of February 7th. He’s been in Nigeria, where Protestant churches are numerous and filled with former Catholics. He notes that in one meeting:

We were emphatic about the need for Catholics to know their faith and evangelize like crazy. We pulled no punches about the deception that Protestantism represents. And as a side note…it absolutely IS a deception, because people are deceived about and therefore unable to receive the Body and Blood of Our Blessed Lord in Holy Communion. This isn’t about sparing people’s feelings; it’s about giving them every piece of knowledge they need to work out their own salvation.

 [Afterwards] a Pentecostal pastor… said he wanted to talk further because HE HAD LEARNED A LOT and THINGS HE DIDN’T KNOW before. Imagine: saying the truth in a bold and clear and above all CHARITABE way encouraged a Pentecostal minister to step up in great humility and gentleness and say that he wants to learn more.

Bottom line: some people may not like the way some things are said. But other people DO LISTEN when its put very plainly and want to know more; all you have to do is SAY it. And more to the point, if you are a baptized Catholic, you are commanded to say it. It’s called the first of spiritual works of mercy: instruct the ignorant. Go and teach all nations to observe everything I have commanded you. We have our marching orders: now get to it.

Here’s the video:

  

There’s also a good article on salvation by Fr. Erlenbush at The New Theological Movement.

Guard Against Gardasil

More on Gardasil… (See also the Truth About Gardasil website.)

Last week, LifeSiteNews had a story about a death from Gardasil which occurred in 2008:

The parents of a 14-year-old girl who died following Gardasil vaccinations provided by the Quebec government are suing the manufacture of the HPV vaccine, pharmaceutical giant Merck Frosst, as well as three doctors and a clinic, for $197,000.

…Annabelle’s mother Linda said her daughter received the first shot at a clinic in October 2008, and that the teenager vomited, became confused and incoherent and was unable to speak or walk, according to a QMI Agency report.

Annabelle was taken to hospital where she was diagnosed with a migraine and sent home.

The lawsuit alleges that Annabelle received a second dose of Gardasil at her school on Nov. 24, 2008 and again became ill.

Two weeks later her parents found her dead in the bathtub.

…As of September 30, 2009, the Public Health Agency of Canada had received a total of 603 reports of adverse events following vaccination with Gardasil, which included twenty-two hospitalizations and one death, according to the PHAC’s website.

In the US, which also approved Gardasil in 2006, records from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) document 28 deaths in 2008, the same year that Annabelle died, that showed an association with Gardasil.

Overall, the FDA documented 6,723 “adverse events” related to Gardasil in 2008, of which 1,061 were considered “serious,” and 142 considered “life threatening.”

Gardasil is all about money, and it’s just plain bad news. I’ve written about it here, where I said, in part:

Gardasil is a controversial cervical cancer vaccine which probably doesn't do what it says it does and probably does do what it says it doesn't. That is to say, there is little evidence that it actually prevents cervical cancer, and there is mounting evidence (most of which is denied by the mainstream medical community) that it causes harm to the girls who receive it.

Quick side note: I see this as a pro-life issue because a) the Gardasil philosophy assumes young girls are having sex outside of marriage, and b) those who make that assumption downplay the significance and essential nature of marriage, and c) that opens the door to the homosexual agenda.

I wrote about Gardasil again, here, referring to the law in California which "allows children as young as 12 to receive vaccinations and other medications to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including the human papilloma virus (HPV)." See the National Catholic Register story here. In that post, I mentioned that:

…the larger issue, of which Gardasil is only a part, is that of the undermining of parental rights. And that's part of the Culture of Death.

Satan is intent upon convincing us to sacrifice our children. He's got us doing that in various ways, and he's moving ever forward with his diabolical plan. Abortion is the prime example, of course…

But there are other ways to sacrifice children: we can sacrifice them on the altar of sexuality. We are seeing children sexualized at earlier and earlier ages, with sex education aimed at even kindergarteners in some countries…The strategy seems to be this: Sexualize the children and provide artificial contraception that is programmed to fail at some point (not to mention being harmful to women's health, as in chemical birth control methods), and you can guarantee enough abortions to fund your whole operation and create a nifty profit besides. The video "Blood Money" cuts to the heart of the issue.

… This is all directly related to the homosexual agenda. Initially, the intent is the sexualization of children; close on the heels of that abomination comes the homosexualizing of children.

And I concluded with these words:

…[P]arents, do a little innoculation of your own: innoculate your children with the whole series of three anti-world shots: the one that prevents pre-marital sex, the one that prevents homosexuality, and the one that prevents illogical, relativistic "moral" thinking. Where can you find the vaccine? It's all right there in your Catholic faith. Learn it. Live it. Teach it.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7:

And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising. 

Liberal Catholics: Enemy of My Enemy?

I’m feeling a little glimmer of hope after reading an article entitled “Obamacare vs. The Catholics” by Jonathan V. Last of The Weekly Standard.

Politically, I’m not particularly astute, and what may be obvious to some (or even most!) is seldom obvious to me. I had been assuming that the bishops’ hue and cry against the HHS contraception mandate – while certainly justified, and certainly appreciated by many “conservative” Catholics – would fall on deaf ears amongst the more “liberal” Catholic crowd. They are, after all, a) not using contraception; b) supporting contraception use by anyone who chooses it; and c) all about “social justice” issues.

But in his article, Mr. Last points out that being all about “social justice” issues is exactly what is making “liberal” Catholics rise up in panic and dismay at the latest anti-Catholic move of the Obama administration.  He writes (my emphases):

…Obama has left Catholic organizations a very narrow set of options. (1) They may truckle to the government's mandate, in violation of their beliefs. (2) They may cease providing health insurance to their employees altogether, though this would incur significant financial penalties under Obamacare. (The church seems unlikely to obtain any of Nancy Pelosi's golden waivers.) Or (3) they may simply shut down. There is precedent for this final option. In 2006, Boston's Catholic Charities closed its adoption service​ – one of the most successful in the nation​ – after Massachusetts law required that the organization must place children in same-sex households.

Which means that what is actually on the block are precisely the kind of social-justice services​ — ​education, health care, and aid to the needy​ — ​that liberal Catholics believe to be the most vital works of the church. For conservative Catholics, Obama merely confirmed their darkest suspicions; for liberals, it was a betrayal in full.

I don’t really think that reasons (1) and (2) in the above excerpt are what the “liberals” care about – they only become the excuses needed to shore up the Church’s right to continue to provide the social services already in full force.

But reason (3) would certainly be significant; indeed, shutting down Catholic schools, hospitals, and charities would be a blow to a large segment of society. Even if Catholic hospitals aren’t really Catholic, they are still Catholic hospitals doing good works for many people of many different faiths. Even if Catholic schools, colleges, and universities are not really Catholic, they are still Catholic schools doing good works for many people of different faiths. Even if Catholic human services agencies are not really Catholic, they are still…you get the picture.

So, these institutions are important to society, and they are near and dear to the hearts of the “social justice” Catholics. This is why, as Mr. Last puts it, “The liberal Catholic establishment nearly exploded” when the HHS mandate was announced. Sister Carol Keehan, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, and a couple of Catholic reporters who champion left-leaning causes within the Church, all joined in with the bishops’ call to arms.  Says Last:

…The editors of the Jesuit magazine America denounced a "wrong decision," while the Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne called the policy "unconscionable." When you've lost even E.J. and the Jesuits, you've lost the church.

In other words, maybe some good can come of that “justice and peace” mindset that almost-but-not-quite reflects Church teaching: it could lead to a withdrawal of support for the president too many Catholics voted for last time.

Maybe it’s a matter of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.  The rift in the Catholic Church in the US seems to me like a pretty big one, and it sometimes seems to make enemies of people who are nominally in the same Church.  For instance, the “justice and peace” folks just never seem to include the unborn in their efforts to promote social justice, and that is incomprehensible to the pro-life folks. They also seem to want to defend the right to be wrong –very wrong – of people espousing (and living) immoral lifestyles, which again goes against the dignity of human life. The current “justice and peace” movement in the Church seems more like “justice in pieces”, to use the words of  Stephanie Block, who has been educating us on ACORN, Alinsky, and Obama for years (see a 2008 article by Stephanie Block in the Catholic Culture library, and a 2011 article about CCHD fraud here). 

The “justice and peace” crowd voted for Obama, but it looks like there’s hope (heh heh!) that they will abandon him in the next election. As Thomas Peters puts it, Obama now has a problem:

 When your top liberal Catholic apologist, Doug Kmiec, withdraws his support of you — you’ve got a problem.

When, for that matter, practically every notable Catholic who has ever supported you withdraws their support of you — you’ve got a problem…

When the Catholic nun who helped you pass Obamacare tells you this needs to be fixed — you’ve got a problem…

And when Vice President Joe Biden realizes there’s nothing he can say to excuse this decision — then, Mr. President, you’ve really got a problem.

Yep. The enemy of my enemy just might vote against him in November.

Oh please God, let it be so!

                            

Religious Liberty: Some Limericks

Just a few limericks (complete with bad rhyming) and commentary…

I wonder why Kathleen Sebelius

Believes we all think she’s serious

When “Catholic”, she claims,

Is her middle name.

Really…she must be delirious.

Sebelius insists (wrongly) that “birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families”. She rightly notes that “it is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women”. So…her point would be?!  It’s still against Church teaching! It’s still immoral, a grave sin!

And then she has the unmitigated gall to suggest that “…by carving out an exemption for religious organizations based on policies already in place, we are working to strike the right balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing women's access to critical preventive health services”. Yeah. Right.

 Well, she has been told not to receive Holy Communion. This is for her own good, lest she unworthily receive the Body of Christ, but it is also necessary to protect the faithful from more scandal.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz has now famously called Sebelius a “bitter, fallen-away Catholic”.

Next up:

Pelosi just can’t get it right

She’d even believe “day” is “night”.

She thinks Catholic checks

Should help “contracept” sex!

Her religion is called “Kathlic-Lite”.

Nancy Pelosi has asked us to believe that the Catholic Church doesn’t really have a clue when human life actually begins; that Obamacare wouldn’t fund abortion; and that Catholics just need to get over this “conscience thing”. She has been corrected by her bishop, and has been laughed at by many who know what it really means to be Catholic. And yet, like the Energizer Bunny, she just keeps going and going and going. Disgraceful.

Now...the bishops...they are trying hard! Yay!

The bishops will fight the good fight;

They’ll wield a pen with great might!

“We cannot, we WILL not!”

They say, but it’s STILL not

Much more than a shot in the night.

I am impressed and encouraged, to some extent, by the outcry of the bishops. Good for them! And good for the ones who have had a letter read in every parish of their dioceses! We need to pray for our bishops to have the strength to wage this war, because, frankly, they’re just not used to it.

I have to admit, though, that I find this comment from Ann Barnhardt amusing, because there is certainly some truth to it (my emphasis):

Wow. I stand in awestruck wonder at the strong, masculine leadership on display. It’s like watching a battle scene in “300” . . . except in this version the Spartans are all 98 pound weaklings who are all crying like little girls and can’t even pick up their own swords without spraining their wrists. “But, but, but, if those meanies don’t stop, we, we, we’re gonna WRITE A LETTER!”

Let us pray that our bishops become more like this:

My final limerick for the day:

The warnings we had were voluminous,

Those “Kathlics” were downright unscrupulous.

We did this ourselves.

It wasn’t the elves.

It’s time we all turned back to truthfulness.

See this article, for example, and this one. The bottom line is that there have been decades of laxity in catechesis of Catholic children and adults on issues of morality and on the truth of Catholic teaching. And whose fault is that? Well, we gain nothing by pointing fingers, really, except for those responsible (all of us, in a sense) to do something about it.

We absolutely must return to an acknowledgement that there IS an absolute truth, an absolute right and wrong. And we can’t be shy about telling the world what that truth is.

Truth.  

Teach it. Preach it. Live it. 

Priests Preaching the Truth

Perhaps a silver lining in that dark cloud of the HSS mandate is the possibility that priests are starting to feel emboldened and encouraged to speak the truth with regard to artificial contraception (and, hopefully, other issues)!

Here is one of the most uplifting and encouraging Face Book status posts I’ve seen in a long time (my emphases):

Seriously the best homily today. Fr. Vietor preached on the sinfulness of contraception, in a straightforward yet loving way. No minced words. And challenged those women who use it to throw away their pills today, or get rid of their contraceptive devices. And he told the men: "Stop using your wives." It was powerful! He also analyzed this culture of instant gratification, and how far reaching the damage is, infecting every part of our lives and our nation. It was incredible!

This was from Leila Habra Miller of Little Catholic Bubble; she lives in a diocese which also has a fine upstanding bishop: Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of the Diocese of Phoenix.

I think I’ve mentioned before that in ten years as a Catholic, I have never once heard the sinfulness of contraception preached from the pulpit, nor taught in any meaningful way in the parish. It was pretty clear to me from early on that this was the elephant in the living room of Catholic “polite” community. 

I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper (see that story here), and I tried to hammer home the fact that contraception is immoral. A friend emailed me after reading the letter and told me

I felt it pushed the contraceptive agenda etc. of the Church too much and didn't address the issue of governmental interference in our religious liberties enough…We will not stop OCare by spreading our doctrine, it is a turn-off to most people, we are not out to make converts but we ARE trying to make sure our U.S. Constitution is protected…But if we jam the front with everything we believe and the same old rhetoric we will turn off the non-Catholics…

I think she’s wrong. It's more of an issue to mess with God's plan for procreation than it is to violate religious liberties. The bishops should be mentioning first and foremost that contraception is a grave sin, an affront to God, and therefore intolerable (just like abortion and euthanasia and assisted suicide), and that therefore it is an affront to religious liberty to force the Church to comply with the HSS mandate.

The Church teaches what it does about contraception because that is the Truth, not because it's the Church's "agenda"! Until Catholics understand that, we will continue to go downhill liturgically, morally, and every other way. As long as we say, "Well, that's what I believe" instead of "Well, that's the Truth, with a capital T!" then we are simply modernists who don't truly believe all that the Church teaches. And if we don't believe it all, if we think our own opinion is what the issue turns on, then we might as well become Protestants. I've been there, done that. I prefer the Truth.

For an excellent commentary along these lines, read Louie Verrecchio’s article “Just Imagine”, in which he compares the bishops’ reaction to the contraception mandate to what we might imagine would be their reaction to a similar mandate for “end of life services” like assisted suicide and euthanasia. He points out that in the latter case, the bishops would likely focus on the immorality of the acts, not the religious freedom to resist them. He writes:

I mean, after all, these acts are intrinsically evil no matter who does them; in other words, they're an offense against Almighty God and a violation of Divine Law in all cases, and so any bishop worth his salt would be certain to make this the centerpiece of his message, wouldn't he?

That’s not been the case with the HSS mandate, but it should be. That’s got to change. Verrecchio continues:

The disordered episcopal priorities that are so plainly evident in the current HHS mandate debacle are nothing new. In fact, they’re so old that one can reasonably assume that the majority of Catholics in the United States today consider free sterilization and contraception less as an affront against God than as a welcome gift.

It is in this climate that the American bishops are now trying to rally the troops by asking the very same people they failed to form in the faith to join them in battling the gift horse. That should go well.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that most of the 54% of self-identified “Catholics” who voted for Obama won’t be beating down the door to fall in line, and given the contracepting tendencies of the other 46% I wouldn’t bet the farm on the majority of them either.

Read the whole article here.

And maybe things are changing! Hope springs eternal! Leila Miller’s pastor is a case in point: if he can do it, others will, too! And besides that, it is my contention that there are plenty of people out there who want to hear the Truth. They crave it.

A few weeks ago, another priest in another diocese in another state also preached the truth. He’s reluctant to have me name him, because he says he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary: he just preached the truth. But, sadly, this is out of the ordinary.

The particular priest preached against the evil of homosexual “marriage”. He did so by telling the people what the Church teaches from Scripture and from the Catechism. And he was surprised that his remarks were met with…wait for it…

…no, not catcalls and boo-ing…

…but applause and a standing ovation.

Now, I am not a fan of applause at Mass, and this priest was also uncomfortable with it. But I think that every now and then, such spontaneous applause does happen and is a result of the people’s hearts – and consciences – being touched by the preaching of the Truth.

People do respond to the Truth. And many of them will respond in a positive manner.

They are hungry for the Truth.

I am hungry for the Truth.

Are you?

Tell your priest.